When online star Alex Day got his first two music royalty checks for nearly $200k he had a choice to make. Do I follow the path of other self-made stars like Amanda Hocking (self-published books to a major publishing deal) and buy into the system, or do I continue to blaze my own path?

English: Alex Day standing in front of a police box, or Tardis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He chose the latter. He said no to the offer of “a boot on his neck” and decided to go his own way. In this decision, he embodies the musician—the artist—of the future: self-sufficient, self-funded, and self-motivated. And now, with the launch of three new singles, he's a pioneer of a new style of releasing and distributing music.

Before we get into that, let’s look briefly at what Alex, at just 23 years old, has already accomplished. In 2006, he started a YouTube channel where he posted his music videos. It quickly took off. In six years, he racked up more than 500,000 subscribers and nearly 100 million views. The songs that accompany these videos? They've been streamed more than 1 million times and sold more than 500,000 paid downloads.

His recipe for success was simple: earnest, youthful music with correspondingly playful videos. It might not be for everyone, but there is a whole underserved and loyal market for this material on YouTube, and Alex put more time and passion into than anyone else.

“I make music people enjoy and they buy it," Day told me over email. "That's my big trick. If I was only doing it for fame, I could sign with a label. If I was only doing it for money, I could churn out rubbish every two weeks. But I take my time and put out quality stuff I'm proud of, for the love of making great music and sharing it with an audience—the more people that hear it, the better. I want to make things that people can love."

But there are plenty of people performing for niche audiences online these days. It wasn’t until December of 2011 that Day’s peerless ambition and savvy became clear to me. He emailed me for advice on the launch of a single early in December called "Forever Yours," with a crazy goal: hitting #1 on the UK charts without a label. Confidentially, I told him it couldn’t be done—not even close. Find a label, I told him. Sign with someone who knows what they are doing. The system will crush you.

I was wrong. On December 18th, his single came out and hit #4 on the UK Charts, with bookmakers strongly predicting a run at the top spot. It eventually did more than 130,000 downloads worldwide and the video was seen more than 4 million times.

Then, in April, Day did it again. Without radio play, his cover of “Lady Godiva” charted at #15, Day’s second Top 20 hit in 4 months . . . as an unsigned artist. Not only that, but, through a random connection with a young fan who begged his or her father, Day’s single had distribution in stores across the UK. Again, as an unsigned artist, Day completely outflanked the record labels, radio, and distributors and went straight to the fans—putting the lion’s share of the earnings in the right pocket: his.

Now that I have a good sense of what Alex Day is capable of as an artist, businessman, and strategist, his next move has my complete support. He’s ignoring the charts all together, and he's no longer interested in gaming them or chasing them as status symbols. (“The charts don't matter anymore. Nobody knows or cares who's #1.") This realization freed him up to take a bold step: releasing three singles at the same time, which while killing chart placement, is better for the fans and for the music.

“One's an original song by me, one's a cover, one's an unreleased track," Day said. "I'm encouraging people to tell me their favourite and it's pretty evenly spread. Instead of pushing to one crazy week, this time I wanna try and build it across the three months, we're spreading out the releases of the music videos and the main thing I'm asking my audience to do is just to tell people.”

Now, the charts that matter aren’t Billboard; they’re iTunes and Amazon (and he’s already hit the Top 40 there with all the songs). He doesn’t need a label's help there. Or an agent, or any other so-called “professional.” Not with a huge YouTube fan base and nearly 100,000 Twitter followers. He’s a self-sustaining machine.

"I've had talks with all the major labels," Day said, "but I reckoned they were trying to sign me in order to squash me; they hate the fact that I proved you can get songs out there without any corporate involvement".

Now compare that with Amanda Hocking, who after selling millions of books herself on Amazon, willingly submitted to a deal with an antiquated publishing house. (“I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling e-mails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time corporation.” No, Amanda, now you’re a wholly owned subsidiary.) With an eye towards clocking 150,000 downloads Alex isn’t afraid of doing the work himself. That’s what motivates him. That's what makes him the musician of the future.

I've been working for years to work with the system to little success but once I struck out on my own, things started happening in a huge way. My biggest asset is raw energy—I'll keep reaching out to people, pushing the song out, working on music, I never get bored of it because I know I'll regret it if I don't look back thinking 'I did everything I could.'